David Axe Security, North Korea’s Deadly Artillery Has the “Potential to Affect Millions of South Korean Citizens” North Korea on Friday claimed it tested…
David Axe
Security,
North Korea’s Deadly Artillery Has the “Potential to Affect Millions of South Korean Citizens”
North Korea on Friday claimed it tested a new « ultramodern » weapon.
State-run Korean Central News Agency said Kim visited the Academy of Defense Science, a center of weapons-development in North Korea, and “supervised a newly-developed ultramodern tactical weapon test.”
Pak Jong Chon, who apparently is head of the Korean People’s Army Artillery Command, reportedly attended the test alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, hinting that the weapon in the test was a non-nuclear artillery system, perhaps firing rockets.
« After seeing the power of the tactical weapon, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un was so excited to say that another great work was done by the defense scientists and munitions industrial workers to increase the defense capability of the country, » KCNA reported, according to The New York Times.
The test underscores the continuing threat that North Korea’s conventional weapons pose to South Korea and U. S. forces on the Korean peninsula, even as the world mostly focuses on Pyongyang’s atomic arsenal.
Much of Pyongyang’s artillery is in range of the Seoul Greater Metropolitan Area, which begins just 25 miles south of the DMZ. Some 10 million people live in the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area and another 15 million reside just outside of the metropolitan area. South Korea has prepared underground shelters for Seoul’s entire population.
« Though the expanding range of North Korea’s ballistic missiles is concerning, a serious, credible threat to 25 million [Republic of Korea] citizens and approximately 150,000 U.
